Nightmares
by Lady Eleanor Boleyn
Summary: The Dark Lord is gathering strength again and Livia Warrington nee Malfoy is no longer as secure as she used to be... Halloween Challenge entry...


**AN: Inspired by Anne's dream of drowning from the Tudors and merged with her execution from the same show. For the Halloween Challenge given to us by Margie on the Bellatrix forum. 692 words.**

_She was dressed in a gown of dark-grey damask with a wide white collar and encrusted with tiny seed pearls. People clustered around her, reaching for her. They were catcalling, pushing her, shoving her from one of them to the other. They were carrying flaming torches. Flaming torches and bloody daggers. _

_She wasn't meant to be here. She knew that. Stifling a scream; attempting not to show the mob how they were panicking her, she tried to fight a way through; to get away from the circle of dripping steel that was closing in on her._

_And then the crowd parted. For a moment, her heart soared with relief. For a moment, she thought she was free. But then, she saw the scaffold. The scaffold with the cold hard executioner's block in the centre of it. Her heart missed a beat and she tried to stop. Surely that wasn't meant for her. Surely?_

_But her legs refused to obey her, carrying her up the steps and on to the scaffold without her consent. Inwardly, she was screaming, but though her mouth was open, no words were coming out. Instead, all she could hear was the baying of the crowd as they pressed in upon her. _

_"NO! No! NO!" She screamed one last time, trying to protest, but it was no good. Yet again, the words refused to come. And now the crowd was upon her. They seized her, forced her to kneel at the block. She scrabbled for her wand. If she could only get to her wand…_

_But it had gone. And she'd never been any good at wandless magic. With a jolt of blind terror; blind terror that brought spasms of tears to her eyes, she realised she was at the mercy of the crowd behind her._

_ She was at the mercy of the crowd and their swords were swishing through the air behind her. She could feel them beginning to tickle her neck…_

Livia Warrington, sister to Lucius Malfoy, sat bolt upright, screaming. Her hands, slick with sweat, went instinctively to her neck, clamping down on it, clutching it. Thank God. Her pulse still beat strong. Her skin was still warm. She was still alive.

"Is the Mistress needing anything?"

Her house elf, Dipsy, appeared at her side. The loud "Crack!" of the creature's Apparition startled her and she flinched.

"Get away from me! Get away!"

"Mistress?" The elf looked surprised. Drawing herself up, Livia attempted to appear as though she had everything under control.

"I'm fine! It was just a bad dream, Dipsy. It was a bad dream, nothing more. Now go away!"

"If that is what Mistress Livia is wishing," Dipsy squeaked. He turned on the spot and was gone.

Livia huddled back under the covers, trying to calm her racing heart. She was fine and she was going to stay that way. Just because there were rumours of the Dark Lord gathering strength again, it didn't mean that she and Marcus were in fear of their lives. Marcus had been a loyal follower in the past. It wasn't as if he was the only one who'd turned his coat in the months after the Fall. Lucius had as well. And countless others. Yet their wives didn't go around as though they were frightened of their own shadows. Their wives didn't have recurring nightmares of being killed. So why did she? Why couldn't she get a hold on herself?

"You're going to be fine, Livia! Now go to sleep!" she ordered herself.

Still, better to be sure. With one hand, she reached for her wand where it lay under the pillow. With the other, she reached for the laudanum she kept on her beside cabinet. She swallowed a triple dose.

As the drugs did their work, she told herself one last time, "Everything is going to be fine. You're going to be fine."

If Livia Warrington had known then that there was a man – a man with a scarred nose, crutch and an electric blue magical eye – standing beneath her window, watching her house and every move its inhabitants made, then she might not have been quite so confident.


End file.
